**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 91.05.19 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> THE FINAL FRONTIER HAS MOVED Federation Data Space has expanded with the addition of two planets written by Explorers. Piemur's planet, Phoenix, in the Deneb system, was linked into the game on Saturday morning, followed by Russ's Haven early this morning. Fed is the only multi-player game that gives players the freedom to create their very own areas. We've been working up to this moment for many months, and are very excited that it has finally arrived. Congratulations to Piemur, who was the very first Squire ever, and to Russ who followed in his footsteps. There's a tremendous amount of work involved in creating a planet, and both their worlds are well worth exploring. **>> BALDING BELLA The run up to planets being implemented saw Our Illustrious Leader racing around making last-minute modifications to the game code so that player's planets could be linked in. The final version was put in on Wednesday, but without the actual planets. Inevitably, it had its problems, but most of them proved to be simple to remedy - and some had hilarious consequences! Anyone who had left cargo stashed in their ship while the change-over was made logged on to find a bonus - the cargo had expanded explosively! 900 ton lumps of cargo were squeezed into bulging Tardis-like ships. Most people took advantage of this by selling the lumps immediately, making huge profits of many megagroats, with just one command! However, Spacey, for reasons unknown, decided to store the 700 ton lump in the warehouse. Ship sizes were subsequently brought back to normal as Bella fixed the bug - and now poor Space can't shift the goods! **>> BLINDED BY THE LIGHT Valdor was most surprised to find that after a fight with Logan he was cloned imperfectly - and woke up in the hospital BLIND! He could see where he was going, but couldn't see who or what was in the room with him! The cause of this is rather technical, so we'll be brief... if you are in your ship, you don't get to see other players or objects that are in the same location. The way the game identified whether you were in your ship or not was changed so that a flag was set when you entered the airlock, and unset when you left it. So far so good... except that Bella forgot that you leave your ship without going through the airlock if you die! So when Valdor woke up in hospital, the game thought he was still in his ship, and stubbornly refused to tell him about people and things in the room with him. Bella gave him some eyedrops and he's all better now. **>> MISSING FACTORIES In the great change-over, some people's factories seem to have gone missing. If you have lost any factories, please let us know using the FEDERATION FEEDBACK option from the main Fed menu. And if you find any of the missing factories lying about anywhere, please return them intact. Actually, we think that the missing factories all developed artificial intelligence, got tired off working so hard, and went off to sun themselves in the fleshpots of Betelgeuse IV. **>> ONE SMALL STEP... And so the great moment came. The first thing people noticed when they logged into Fed Data Space (if they read the SpyNet Review) was that it shows which systems are available, including the number of locations. Sol was listed, and so was Deneb - Piemur's system! The player's systems are reached using the Interstellar Link - in the Sol system it is located three locations west of Titan. Anyone who has reached the rank of Adventurer can use the link with the command - on its own tells you which systems are available, and takes you through the link. Be warned that passage through to another system is very wearing, so have a good meal before you go. For each new planet, you need to know the system name in order to actually get there, and the planet name for economic purposes. In Russ's case, both system and planet are called Haven; Piemur's system is Deneb, and the planet is Phoenix. Once you have found your way from the Link to the planet itself, you can explore to your heart's content. Phoenix is an industrial society, rather a dour sort of place, with lots of religious groups - and it has a branch of Chez Diesel. Haven is a mediaeval planet with a feudal society, protected from outside influence by the Galactic Administration. Both planets are dangerous to the unwary. The Deneb system has a rather deadly space mobile called Wormhole which has a high reward - it claimed a lot of casualties! Piemur was rather embarassed to be the first person to die on his OWN planet! He got one of his events wrong, and not only did it work the wrong way round - but it took off far more stamina than was intended! The same rogue event also claimed Oxcart, who has the dubious honour of being the first casualty of the new planets. Neuromancer can claim to have bought the first extra-Solar warehouse. Stupid didn't look where he was going when leaving Russ's planet this morning, and managed to fly into Haven's star. Not clever! Squires can remove their planets for refurbishment at any time, so Piemur will be fixing his problem event today. It also means that if any of you come up with suggestions for changes, the planet owners can implement them - and they can also make seasonal changes, to reflect special occasions they feel should be celebrated. We are sure you would all agree that planets are a great success - and it was well worth waiting for them! **>> ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES The two new planets have been designated Agricultural worlds. They have trading exchanges of their own, and independent economies, just like the planets in Sol system. Merchants who use the facility will see both the planets added to the price list. You can buy warehouses on the planets, and Merchants can use remote buying to fill them. Poor People can receive jobs from Rich People either to or from the players' planets - but SlyNet and MilkRun jobs do not, at the moment, leave the Sol system. For the time being, we advise people not to buy factories on the new planets. Other than that, treat them as you would any other world. But please leave them as you would wish to find them! **>> NOT A BUG - A FEATURE! Bella doesn't like people to use the "B" word. It makes her go pale (pale green, anyway). When the new code went in, some people were so keen to find all the bugs, they managed to find some features that have been in the game for a long time - but that they didn't know about before! It was a closely guarded secret that if you are in space you can talk to people in the same space location. You see, there are these hidden loudspeakers on the side of your ships... it's part of the Galactic Administration's espionage arm, they wanted to keep tabs on you all, but it sort of went wrong... Well, that's our excuse and we are sticking to it! **>> MISSING TIGHTBEAM MESSAGES Another feature that has only recently become widely known is that with many commands, the ship name can be substituted for the persona name - for example, you can if you like Explorer Hazed's ship that much! Another "feature" is the way that the game tries desparately hard to understand what you want when you mistype a command. It will scan along your input until it finds a word it understands, then do whatever that word tells it to do. One has to give it marks for keen-ness! This sometimes has peculiar results. For example, if you are chatting in Chez Diesel and you leave the quote mark off the beginning of your sentence... and you happen to use a word beginning with the letter U... the game will see the U and think, aha! He/she wants to go UP! Hey presto, before you know it you are in the Mare's Nest, wondering what's going on. It can get worse. Suppose someone asks you how they sell their spaceship. You mistype the COM and find your ship is sold out from under you! Or, they want to know how to kill themselves off... that's why a lot of people deliberately mis-spell the word SUICIDE when they use it in messages. But the most common thing to happen is with tightbeam messages. If you are talking about someone else you MUST be careful who the message goes to. Mistype the name, or send it after the intended recipient has logged out, and the game will send it to the first name it recognises - the person you were talking about! One person who knows a lot more about what's going on in Fed that anyone intends is Catrina. A lot of the mis-directed tightbeam messages end up going to her. Why? Because her ship is called The The... We are sure you can work out the rest! **>> MOODY Speaking of Catrina, we apologise if we have given the impression in previous issues of this News Bulletin that we think Catrina's behaviour, vis-a-vis relationships, leaves something to be desired. On the contrary; we are full of admiration for her behaviour. We wish we had her stamina! But can anyone explain why she has a mood that reads "HHH"? What does it stand for? **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS What with the excitement of planets, promotions have rather been overshadowed this month - but congratulations to Catrina, Davidge and Spacey, who made Merchant. Lite made Trader, and thanks everyone who helped. Sly also made Trader - in just eight hours of play. Very impressive! Kleist made Adventurer, in the nick of time to visit the new planets. Well done all of you. **>>CONTACTS The following information will appear at the end of every News Bulletin, so you don't have to read it if you already know it. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed, Bella or Clem in the game * leave a message in the game log * send mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation II by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. Federation II has a category in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 14. The Federation II Leader in the bulletin board is Occy (Mail ID: OCPAC). Topic 1 of the Fed category contains the Federation II policy statement. The MPGames RT also has a Federation II library in the files area, Library 5. **>> BULLETIN ENDS